However, It is perfectly true that we've done more good on this planet than any other nation in history.

Not arguable, and not pertinent. Doing good isn't like a mortgage. We don't get to borrow against it to do things that are self-centered or destructive.

The purposes of history are to learn from past mistakes, and to take a lesson from any good example from the past. We don't get points for being good in the past.

For all the criticism lawyers get, lawyers know the value of past behavior. It will get one a reduced sentence, sometimes, and it will get one reasonable bail, but it will not get one off the hook for any action for which one is culpable.

The United States is a great nation because of its generosity, its imagination, and its tolerance. That is a humbling heritage which we must live up to every day in order not to betray the spirit of the nation that produced it.

Instead of using our past to justify ourselves and inflate our collective ego, why don't we try to look at our past as a humbling lesson in just how much we have to live up to, on the good side, and how much effort we must put into breaking what of our destructive behavior patterns remain, on the bad?

The fact that some people's brains boil into vapor on simply reading the preceding sentence is just another symptom of the problem.

Yes. When a group attempts to identify itself with Christianity but never gets past using it to justify aggression, vaporbrains can result.